Know Your Home Like You Know Yourself

Thanks for stopping by. I'm Louie Blatt. Even if you are not a handyman, it is important to understand the home that you live in. At the very least, you'll know when there is something wrong with it and will be able to hire a contractor to make the necessary repairs. I've always tried to help my family members out with problems that they have with their homes. A lot of my family members seem almost afraid of their homes and don't understand that with a little knowledge, you may be able to make a few cheap repairs yourself and it is surprisingly easy.

Three Tips For Waterproofing Your Basement

Posted on:
2 July 2017

If you live in an area that gets a lot of rain, or if you have to contend with snow melting off of your roof, then you need to take steps to waterproof your basement. Don't wait for signs of moisture inside your home. Instead, be proactive, make an inspection to see if you have problems in your home with waterproofing, and deal with problems before they start.

Don't Leave Downspouts in Doubt

Your roof should be fitted with rain gutters and each rain gutter should have a downspout. Remember that a downspout is not enough by itself to guide water away from your home. Instead, downspouts guide all the water from your roof to a specific spot along your foundation. To make sure that rainwater does not simply seep into the ground along your foundation, dig a trench leading away from your downspout. Put a run of PVC pipe in this trench. At the end of the trench dig a drywell. In other words, you will dig down several feet, and then fill the hole you have made with gravel and sand. This will leave porous areas in the well that can be filled with the water coming from your roof.

Check the Grade

Water from your roof is only one problem that can cause water to seep into the ground along your foundation. If you have sprinklers, the water from your sprinklers can run down to your foundation and pool up. Thus, you will want to make sure that the ground around your house slopes away from it for at least several feet. For even better results, you can bury a sheet of plastic in the ground several inches deep. This plastic should slope away from your foundation so that any water that seeps into the ground around your house will hit this plastic and then run away from your house.

Check Your Sprinklers

The last thing to do is to make sure that your sprinklers do not actually spray your house. Adjust the spray from the nozzles of sprinklers that spray toward your house to make sure that they don't actually hit your house. You will also want to check the ark of any heads along the foundation of your house to make sure that they stop before they start to spray your house.

The key thing to remember when waterproofing your basement is that it is better to keep water away from your foundation in the first place, then to take steps to waterproof your basement but not direct water away. While actually waterproofing the basement by painting tar on the outside walls and covering the inside walls with a thin layer of waterproof cement is a good idea, you will still want to take the steps described above to direct water away from your basement.